The Icarus Girl is an African tale of Jessamy Harris, an 8 year old little girl who is lost in the confusion of parallel worlds.
In Yorubu African Lore it is said that twin children inhabit three dimensions, the bush, the normal world and the spirit world.
The bush is an african place inhabited by folk lore and ghosts, it is a wilderness and a maze akin to a hypnotic dreamworld where a soul can become entangled.
My Life in The Bush of Ghosts was written by Amos Tutuola in 1954. This book is also based on Yorubu folk lore.
This tale follows an abandoned 8 year old boy and his journey through the bush during slave raids. His journey confuses the real with the unreal and other parallel worlds which are brought on by hallucinations due to hunger and fever.
In some ways his tale is similar to The Icarus Girl as they both become entangled in The Bush and the minds of these children becoming snagged on branches and ghosts.
Both of these stories, for different reasons, are split in two
The Icarus Girl is split because she doesn't really know who she is, whether she is African or English, white or black. Throughout most of this story it is also hard to tell what is real and what is not. She is tormented in school because of her dilution of race.
My Life in the Bush of ghosts is split because it is a fusion of Yorubu folk lore and western morale. It is said that Amos Tutuola has used the tale of the boy lost in the Bush to highlight the Western influence and greed that seeps away from the west and into other countries. It is also said that Tutuola was critisised by fellow africans because the folk lores that he would have heard from his mothers mouth had been diluted with western references.
By adding these references to the ancient tales, he is making a social comment on how the world changes. The races of the world have intermingled with each other and now infiltrate each others history by becoming part of the present and the past.
Very little on this earth is pure anymore, both books use 'the bush' to illustate this.
The title of Oyeyemis book hints at mixed races as she already combines Greek Mythology with African Folk Lore in the books title,before the book is opened. Although there is no reference to the Greek Myth Icarus during the storys length, I can only assume the reference is describing how she is plunged into fever when she was ill.
It is said that Tutuola would have been a famous village story teller had he not have had the opportunity to go to school and learn to write.
My life in the Bush of Ghosts also influenced Bryan Eno and David Byrne to make an album of the same name, which was released in 1981.
In Yorubu African Lore it is said that twin children inhabit three dimensions, the bush, the normal world and the spirit world.
The bush is an african place inhabited by folk lore and ghosts, it is a wilderness and a maze akin to a hypnotic dreamworld where a soul can become entangled.
My Life in The Bush of Ghosts was written by Amos Tutuola in 1954. This book is also based on Yorubu folk lore.
This tale follows an abandoned 8 year old boy and his journey through the bush during slave raids. His journey confuses the real with the unreal and other parallel worlds which are brought on by hallucinations due to hunger and fever.
In some ways his tale is similar to The Icarus Girl as they both become entangled in The Bush and the minds of these children becoming snagged on branches and ghosts.
Both of these stories, for different reasons, are split in two
The Icarus Girl is split because she doesn't really know who she is, whether she is African or English, white or black. Throughout most of this story it is also hard to tell what is real and what is not. She is tormented in school because of her dilution of race.
My Life in the Bush of ghosts is split because it is a fusion of Yorubu folk lore and western morale. It is said that Amos Tutuola has used the tale of the boy lost in the Bush to highlight the Western influence and greed that seeps away from the west and into other countries. It is also said that Tutuola was critisised by fellow africans because the folk lores that he would have heard from his mothers mouth had been diluted with western references.
By adding these references to the ancient tales, he is making a social comment on how the world changes. The races of the world have intermingled with each other and now infiltrate each others history by becoming part of the present and the past.
Very little on this earth is pure anymore, both books use 'the bush' to illustate this.
The title of Oyeyemis book hints at mixed races as she already combines Greek Mythology with African Folk Lore in the books title,before the book is opened. Although there is no reference to the Greek Myth Icarus during the storys length, I can only assume the reference is describing how she is plunged into fever when she was ill.
It is said that Tutuola would have been a famous village story teller had he not have had the opportunity to go to school and learn to write.
My life in the Bush of Ghosts also influenced Bryan Eno and David Byrne to make an album of the same name, which was released in 1981.
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